


Murder Ballad

by aderyn



Series: Natural Facts [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, murder & lullabies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:24:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hush,” John says, “hush. “</p>
<p>“There was a man who knew all the landmarks in London, and he didn’t even need to see them because they were all  in his head, with his murder scenes...”</p>
<p>It’s a strange lullaby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murder Ballad

**Author's Note:**

> thanks (again) to Chapbook, who made me think about the darkness of folk songs, which lead to murder ballads...

_“We rushed into the captain's cabin . . . there he lay with his brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic_ _which was pinned upon the table_ , _while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow.”---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott’”_

 

They put away an airline pilot (totalled left thumb) on a Sunday at half past nine. The pilot disembarked his flight and shot his wife; they’d carried her to the burying ground twelve hours previous.

It isn’t as easy as it sounds.  It’s got a seam of aventurine. They haven’t slept.  Sherlock’s stretched bright as titanium wire, twisted as a copper pair.  
  
“Tell me a story,” says Sherlock.  (He does that sometimes.)

“So,” John says, “So. There was a smoking gun.”  
  
“No,” Sherlock says, “No. There never is...or yes, _there always is,_ but people don’t see it. _Why can’t they see it_?”  
  
“Hush,” John says, “hush.”

“Once someone stole all the landmarks in London,” says John.  
  
“The horror, “says Sherlock.  
  
“But it didn't matter,"says John, “because there was a man who knew all the landmarks in London, and he didn’t even need to see them because they were all in his head, with his murder scenes, on his mind-map, and there was a man who went home and shot his wife and they carried her to the burying ground...and he had nowhere to hide.”  
  
“Why,” Sherlock says,“Why,” (heavy-eyed) “did it take so long this time?”  
  
“Well there are shadows,” John says, “shadows.”  
  
 _It's a myth that you don't sleep, rocked there by shadows, and murder, and blood._

**Author's Note:**

> Some phrases (half past nine, the burying ground )borrowed from the murder ballad "Little Sadie" (in which, of course, there is a gun and a murdered woman), also known as “Cocaine Blues,” which was once recorded by,of all people, Doc Watson (1963):  
> ["Little Sadie"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpYet4rFpu0)
> 
> “You know what blood looks like in a black and white video?  
> Shadows, shadows, that's exactly what it looks like”: from John Prine’s [“Lake Marie.”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te7x8s9P4U8%22)


End file.
